Are You Scared to Accept Your Wounds?

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Episode 66 – PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Hi there, welcome back to Kelly Martin Speaks, this is episode 66. I’m your host Kelly Martin.

To begin this episode, I want to say a huge thank you to those listeners who contacted me after I asked for feedback on episode 65 ‘What If Your Inability to Receive Is From Past Trauma’. As you may know I was considering taking a long sabbatical from doing the podcast, mainly because with podcasting it can be hard to know whether anyone is listening without feedback and also I had to balance out the time involved versus how many listeners were enjoying the episodes.

So thank you for getting in touch and sharing your support with me.

Anyone else who wants to share feedback can do so by emailing me at kellymartinspeaks@gmail.com  Also I am always open to dedicating a podcast episode to any issues you may be having and talking through it on the episode. So, any questions, ask away. I’d love to start doing a combined episode where I discuss a topic and then take your questions and answer them in the second half of the podcast. It’s also great to trigger conversation and to understand what you are all needing to know the most about.

So now onto today’s episode.

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Are You Scared to Accept Your Wounds?

Now we all have wounds.

In many ways the ego, the mind is perpetually in a wounded place when it re-acts to the world around us and makes us feel deeply triggered. The ego does have its place; it makes sure we tend to the day-to-day living requirements, getting out of bed in the morning, brushing our teeth etc… but the problem comes when we have wounds that we are not prepared to face or avoid for one reason or another.

In my past I avoided my own wounds and triggers by being an intensive binge drinker for around 8-9 years. In my late teens to early twenties, I lived in a culture in the north of the UK where to be part of the tribal system, to feel a sense of belonging, meant drinking a lot of alcohol. As an introvert, someone who had zero self-esteem back then and someone who found communicating difficult, alcohol set my inhibitions free. I was a different person. I sounded more confident, talked to people I wouldn’t normally, but I also did things that were not wise, were unhealthy and merely increased my low self-esteem.

My wounds were papered over by alcohol. And when the guilt, shame and embarrassment arose the day after drinking, I papered over that pain and wounding with food, cakes, chocolate – anything that felt comforting and with television. It may feel easy to distract from wounds and triggers, but like anything swept under the carpet, eventually it gets bigger and can run how we make choices in life.

Later my wounds were covered up with ‘positive thinking’. I would try to fixate on the positive to the detriment of the negative, thinking I could just erase all my pain away if I just stayed positive.

And I spent a lengthy period of time projecting, believing that if I could just fix/save/rescue or judge others I would not have to face my own demons coming to the surface for loving acceptance.

And let’s not forget the 30+ years of people pleasing, thinking that if I just pleased others they would like me/want to spend time with me instead of facing the underlying feeling of ‘not feeling good enough’ or ‘lacking in value’.

There comes a time in our lives when we start facing those wounds.

Facing Your Wounds – Small Steps

In the beginning we may do it in small ways, just becoming aware, through journaling or joining courses or classes to help us understand more of who we are.

But in the beginning, we tend not to want to go into the deep stuff, in fact we can’t. In the beginning we can only remove the layers that bury the deeper core wounding.

This is a very important part of the process. We can’t discover how to let go of the feeling of low self-esteem or ‘not feeling good enough’ without understanding the patterns and behaviour we put in place to protect us from that pain. The removing of the layers often happens when we are ready to discover what is holding us back and what protections we are ready to let go of now.

When those deeply buried wounds from the past come to the surface, they come to the surface for a reason. They are now ready and available to be healed.

Sometimes part of this wounding is discovering that masked beneath our fear of failure, our fear of rejection, our fear of loss, is the exact opposite.

We fear success, we fear acceptance and love and we fear intimacy and true-life connection with other human beings.

As I mentioned in a previous episode on life roles, even a strong feeling of independence can be an avoidance and self-protection method. We may feel we are taking care of ourselves, but we are also not letting other people in. So, we fiercely protect our independence, but we also may be blocking true connection and intimacy with others.

Facing this deep vulnerability can be hard, accepting that we have these fears, these wounds and triggers, takes not only commitment, but also discipline to come back time and time again from a more loving place to embrace what arises.

Allowing this vulnerability enables the loving spirit of life to help bring a sense of caring and love into the wounds. This helps dissolve the layers and protections we put in place to stay safe, even if the safety is an illusion. but the walls we put up to protect us block the ‘good’ as well as the perceived ‘bad’ stuff too.

No Longer Hiding From Yourself

Facing our wounds, be it alone through journaling or meditation or through the help of a therapist, can be enlightening.

When we are no longer hiding from ourselves or other people, we can then find a greater self-acceptance and allow healing to take place. From here we can come to others from a more whole place and be an empowering example of healthy authenticity in the world.

The fact is that with our own wounds we may think that ‘other’ people are out to get us, especially when we are triggered, but the fact is, those other people have as many wounds as we do and most people are trying to manage and live life with their own wounds and are too busy trying to feel safe behind their own layers of self-protection.

This doesn’t stop us being triggered, it just means many wounded people are triggering one another, until one person takes the chance on embracing their own pain and we then do this as collective humanity.

The struggles and wars of this world will no longer be necessary, but it’s not our job to heal ourselves to stop war, this shouldn’t be the reason to find acceptance. Instead it is our job to feel and to release the inner war and come to a place of acceptance, for us. The outer changes are merely icing on the cake.

When we start to accept what is coming up to be faced, life triggers us less.

If something in life works out, we feel acceptance, if something in life doesn’t work out, we feel acceptance.

Nothing can stop that inner peace that was always there beneath the layers of wounds.

Questions To Ask

If you are feeling stuck and wondering what wounds you may have, the questions you can ask about your own wounding are:

• Is there anything you are doing in your life right now that is distracting you from feeling pain?
• Do you have any secondary benefits to remaining where you are in life, even if where you are feels painful, stuck or stressful?
• What is stopping you from accepting your wounds?
• Is it possible that your fears are more about the opposite of those fears than the actual fears themselves? For example, if you fear you will always be sad or depressed, is it possible that you are scared of joy or peace? And why would that be so?

 

These are ways you can become aware of your wound. It will help you to stop it growing and festering. By questioning and becoming aware, you can help those wounds be healed.

 

This begins by feeling, truly feeling, and it’s not an intellectual exercise.

 

As the mystic teacher Osho says:

Just for twenty-four hours, try it – total acceptance, whatsoever happens. Someone insults you, accept it; don’t react, and see what happens. Suddenly you will feel an energy flowing in you that you have not felt before.

 

While this might sound really hard to do, what a good exercise to try.

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Thanks for listening to another episode of Kelly Martin Speaks, please email me at kellymartinspeaks@gmail.com if you have a question in life that you are struggling with. You name will be kept confidential from listeners.

Also, if you enjoyed this episode be sure to pop over to kellymartinspeaks.co.uk, visit the podcast page and if you feel inspired donate me a cup of coffee or more via the donation link.

Many thanks.

Until next time…

Bye for now.

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